Benefits Of Music Education

Benefits Of Music Education
Three Powerful Reasons why children benefit from music
education as part of their Curriculum, especially at a
young age. There has been plenty of research done about the
benefits of music education for young children.

1. Playing music improves concentration, memory and
self-expression

One two-year study in Switzerland run with 1200 children in
more than 50 classes scientifically showed how playing
music improved children's reading and verbal skills through
improving concentration, memory and self-expression.(1)
Younger children who had three more music classes per week
and three fewer main curriculums made rapid developments in
speech and learned to read with greater ease.

Other effects revealed by the study showed that children
learned to like each other more, enjoyed school more (as
did their teachers) and were less stressed during the
various tests, indicating they were better able to handle
performance pressure.

2. Playing music improves the ability to think

Ongoing research at the University of California-Irvine and
the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh (2) demonstrate that
learning and playing music builds or modifies Neural
pathways related to spatial reasoning tasks, which are
crucial for higher brain functions like complex maths,
chess and science.

The first studies showed that listening to a Mozart sonata
temporarily improved a child's spatial abilities. Further
studies compared children who had computer lessons,
children who had singing lessons, children who learned
music using a Keyboard and children who did nothing
additional. The children who had had the Music classes
scored significantly higher - up to 35% higher - than the
children did Who had computer classes or did nothing
additional.(3)

3. Learning music helps under-performing students to improve

Researchers at Brown University in the US (4) discovered
that children aged 5-7 years who had been lagging behind in
their school performance had caught up with their peers in
reading and were ahead of them in math's after seven months
of music lessons. The children's classroom attitudes and
behavior ratings had also Significantly improved, and after
a year of music classes were rated as better than the
children who had had no additional classes.

1. E W Weber, M Spychiger and J-L Patry, Musik macht
Schule. Biografie und Ergebnisse eines Schulversuchs mit
erweitertemMusikuntericcht. Padagogik in der Blauen Eule,
Bd17. 1993.

2. Various studies by Dr. Gordon Shaw (University of
California-Irvine) and Dr. Fran Rauscher (University of
Wisconsin-Oshkosh), with others.Including those published
in Nature 365:611 and Neuroscience Letters 185:44-47

3. E L Wright, W R Dennis & R L Newcomb. Neurological
Res.19:2-8. 1997

4. M F Gardiner, A Fox, F Knowles & D Jeffrey. Learning
improved by arts training. Nature 381:284. 1996.

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Kevin and Janice Tuck jointly own the Fun Music Company, an
organization dedicated to providing fun, educational music
resources for children and teachers.
They also have a free music teachers resource collection at
http://www.musicteachersblog.com